In recent times, interest has grown in the production of diverse content, i.e., content such as audio and/or video media that is the product of contributions from multiple authors. Such diverse content may include, for example, a movie that includes audio produced by a first contributor (or group of contributors) and video that is produced by a second contributor (or group of contributors). Regardless of its nature, the authors contributing to diverse content often wish to have their contribution to such content attributed to them. One purpose of such attribution may be to retain the rights an author might have in his/her contribution to diverse content. Another purpose of such attribution may be to assist the contributor in the enforcement of such rights.
With the rise in digital distribution of content, authors who contribute to diverse media may be increasingly concerned with attribution as a mechanism to maintain and/or enforce rights. This is reflected by the wide use of rights management (“RM”) technology to protect digital content. As may be understood in the art, RM technology is a class of access control technologies that may be used by content creators in an attempt to control the use of digital content after it is distributed to a consumer or other third party. For example, RM technology may be used to limit: a user's ability to copy, print, or otherwise share the digital content; the devices on which the digital content may be played; and/or the number of devices on which the digital content may be maintained. RM technology may also be used to provide information about all or a portion of a piece of digital content.
For example, RM technology may be used to generate metadata that includes one or more RM labels, e.g., which identify the name of the author(s), the relevant owners, etc. of all or a portion of a piece of digital content. In this way, metadata may be used in a RM system to attribute various portions of diverse content to one or more authors/owners. Such attribution may later be used by the author and/or owner to enforce his or her rights in the relevant portion of the diverse content.
While metadata may be used to attribute portions of diverse content to relevant authors (e.g., through the use of metadata), in many instances such metadata (or the RM labels provided therein) are assigned after the diverse media is created, e.g., in a clearing house environment. In such instances, the metadata and/or RM labels may be created in a process that is separate from and/or remote in time from the creation of the content in question. Returning to the movie example, metadata containing RM labels may be generated by a clearing house to attribute portions of the movie (audio, video, etc.) to relevant authors after the entire movie is assembled. Such a process can be inefficient and may result in the omission of appropriate attribution to aspects of the diverse content (movie). Furthermore, metadata and/or RM labels generated in this manner may be lost if that diverse content is incorporated into other diverse content.
Although the following detailed description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.